


Closing Time

by stickman



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Convenience Store, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3749947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickman/pseuds/stickman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is a general store, an exasperated store owner, and that one costumer who always comes in 5 minutes before the store is about to close.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. version one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ewebean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewebean/gifts).



> tumblr prompt:  
> • That one asshole costumer that always comes in 5 minutes before the store is about to close au
> 
> for ewebean, who said: #oh my god give me that 5 minutes before the store closes AU#or give me death -- don't die, ewe

It’s the first warm day of spring and, true to form, not even an hour after sunset the rain starts. The heat breaks and it should be a relief, but instead everything—windows, door, shelves, air—seems to swell with damp. Slumped against the counter, Bilbo Baggins blows stray bangs out of his eyes and watches the clock. His shift started with inventory at five a.m., and now it’s nearly nine. Just another hour, and then he can finally close up and go home. Get out of his striped uniform shirt and apron, take a long shower, and fall asleep. Do it again tomorrow.

            He was never under any illusion that running a local general store was a glamorous job. All the same, he kind of wishes it were more eventful. On slow days he reads behind the counter, or makes small talk with the customers, but the most excitement he generally gets—and that’s not even the right word for it—is arguing with the one asshole who always comes in five minutes before the store’s about to close. If he were anyone else, he’d be fired, but this is, for better or worse, Bilbo’s own store. When his parents died, he thought about selling it, thought about taking the money and traveling or going back to school or doing anything but keeping it, and yet when he stepped inside to box things up and get ready for the sale he couldn’t do it. It was never a career for his parents, more a pastime of his father’s, something to do while Bilbo was away getting his degree in History, and his mother got roped into it along the way. So there’s nostalgia around it, and that, more than anything else, is what keeps Bilbo here, on a quiet side street in a college town when half his business is selling cigarettes and beer and the other half is keeping his parents’ old regulars supplied with newspapers and dish soap and whatever odd requests they bring him.

            His closing time asshole, though, is definitely on the cigarettes-and-beer side of things. It’s Monday. The guy is, presumably, some kind of grad student. He should be studying, in some library or lab somewhere. And yet, five minutes to ten o’clock, in he comes, shaking rain off his hood and nodding to Bilbo like he’s not being an absolute pain. Which he is, of course. Bilbo’s already started closing out. As if there could ever be one night when he gets out of here on time. Stepping up on the stool he keeps behind the counter—the perils of being too short to see over the shelves—Bilbo scans the store for the guy, wondering what he’ll buy this time. Sometimes he picks up random things, kerosene fuel or dry cereal or a jar of almond butter. This time, he’s got a six-pack of stout and a bag of pretzels.

            “You do know we close at ten, right?” Bilbo asks, as the guy approaches the counter.

            “I do,” he says evenly. “You tell me every time.”

            “Yes, because I keep hoping you’ll learn.”

            “Guess I’m a slow learner.”

            “You’re definitely slow.”

            The guy has the audacity to smile at him as he hands over a twenty dollar bill. Bilbo glares, and hits the button to open the cash register drawer with unnecessary force. “You should eat something besides pretzels and beer. Might improve brain function,” he says, handing back the change.

            “Did you grow taller?” the guy asks, leaning forward to glance over the counter. “Or are you standing on a box?”

            “Oh, shut up,” Bilbo snaps. “Take your change and go. You only have a minute left.”

            “Until what?”

            “Until . . .”

            “Long day? No comebacks this time?” The guy takes his change and pockets it, still smiling. Bilbo crosses his arms over his chest, still standing on the stool. “I’m disappointed in you.”

            “Wonderful. Take your disappointment with you when you leave, will you? It’s stinking up my store.” They have their usual staring contest, and though Bilbo’s got the advantage of extra height he still can’t look the guy in the eyes. With a sigh he looks away first, blinking down at the counter. Typical Monday. Nothing’s going his way. The guy lingers, but doesn’t say anything. Just stands there. Who does that? Finally, just as the clock hits ten, he turns and heads for the door. Bilbo looks up, watches him pull his hood up over long dark hair, looks back to the last-day sales stacked next to the checkout counter. There’s a couple of apples that he’ll gladly eat, and a seriously bruised cantaloupe that probably still tastes fine, if you like cantaloupe. Bilbo doesn’t. “Hey,” he calls out, “think fast.” The guy turns just in time to catch the melon that Bilbo throws at his head. “Take that with you too.”

            “Is it also stinking up your store?”

            “Yes.”

            “This is a first. No one’s ever given me a honeydew before.”

            “It’s a cantaloupe, you idiot.”

            “There’s a difference?”

            “Yes, there’s a difference.”

            “Hmm. How about that.” The guy turns the cantaloupe over in his hands. He has very long fingers, Bilbo notices, and then wishes he didn’t.

            “Are you leaving now?” Bilbo asks, already regretting calling out a warning. He should have just chucked the melon. He has good aim. He could have made a headshot.

            “I thought I’d give you my name first. It’s Thorin. I don’t make a habit of catching cantaloupes for just anyone, you know, Mr. Store Owner.”

            “We’re not going to be on a first-name basis just because I threw spoiled fruit at you. This is not progress. Please get out of my store so I can go home.”

            “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Thorin says to him, and holds up the cantaloupe like a salute as he steps out the door.

            Bilbo drops his head to the counter and groans. He’ll have to find a better—and more rotten—fruit to throw before tomorrow comes. Something harder to catch. Like maybe a pineapple.


	2. version two

The problem with running one of the few stores in town that’s open past seven o’clock is that you get all the desperate, last-minute customers, the ones who buy the strangest combinations of things and look furtive as they go through your aisles, as if there’s something wrong about purchasing rope and candle sticks at nine-thirty at night. Which of course there is. The only thing that would make it worse is if they purchased a lead pipe as well, and really made it a game of Clue. Glaring at the last few college kids who are reading magazines without buying any until they duck out of the door, Thorin Oakenshield waits for his most reliable—most annoying—customer. The one who always comes five minutes before he closes up the place.

He’s well aware that he doesn’t have the best demeanor for a store keeper. His sister has certainly told him so often enough, and he tries but it never seems to work. Fortunately, it doesn’t much matter, where they are. The combination of early-closing competitors and students looking to fuel their studying binges with energy drinks and caffeine pills means that their general store stays in business whether Thorin smiles or not. He’s decidedly not smiling when the last-minute regular walks in, wearing tight jeans and a loose sweater, his hair sticking up every which way. Undeterred by Thorin’s unsmiling face, the guy goes over to the refrigerated section and proceeds to read the labels on every kind of yogurt. They are exactly the same yogurts that have been there since yesterday, when he last looked at them. Nothing has changed. Nothing ever changes here.

            “Your usual?” Thorin grouses, as the guy approaches the counter, two containers of vanilla in his hands and a Better Homes & Gardens magazine underneath his arm.

            “That’s right.”

            “What is it you do every night, that you’re never here until closing?” It’s a question that’s been on Thorin’s mind since the end of the first week of this pattern, but he’s always been able to hold it back until now. He doesn’t mean to ask it; it just comes out, as he’s ringing up overpriced organic yogurt, noticing the polka-dot pattern on the guy’s wallet, the tired lines of his face.

            “Am I keeping you from your bed?”

            “Yes.”

            The guy laughs, and Thorin feels his face heating up.

            “I mean, no. You’re just annoying.”

            “Oh, annoying?”

            “Come earlier,” Thorin tells him.

            “I don’t get off work until just now, I’m afraid.”

            “Where do you work?”

            “Four months I’ve been coming here, and now the twenty questions? And you don’t even start with the basics? Where are your manners, Mr. Shopkeep?”

            “Left them at home.”

            “In your bed?” the guy asks, and Thorin could swear he was teasing. This is a new development. Ignoring the question, Thorin bags the yogurt and magazine. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. The basics. My name’s Bilbo. What’s yours?”

            “Thorin.” Is Bilbo teasing? Is this polite conversation? Thorin’s always prided himself on not wasting time with small talk but now he’s wishing he at least talked to the college kids about the weather or their classes or something, so that he could have some frame of reference for this. He’s pretty sure he’s being made a fool of. That’s not even the worst part, though. The worst part is that he kind of doesn’t mind. Why doesn’t he mind? What’s wrong with him?

            “You all right, Thorin?” Bilbo asks, peering up at him, and Thorin steps back, nearly knocks over a stack of newspapers.

            “Fine,” Thorin says, clearing his throat. He rakes his hair out of his eyes and glances at the clock. Less than a minute to go now.

            “Well, this is progress. Maybe next time you’ll ask me for coffee.”

            “Why would I need your coffee? I sell coffee.”

            Bilbo laughs. “I know. I buy it every Saturday. But I meant you and I might go out somewhere and drink coffee together. Have a conversation sitting down, for a change, so I can actually look you in the face without straining my neck. You know, that sort of thing.”

            “Oh.”

            “Yes, well . . . Now that I’ve made a fool of myself, I’ll take my yogurt and take my leave. Goodnight, Thorin.”

            It takes him a minute to recover, and by the time he realises what’s happened and looks up, Bilbo’s already out the door. But Thorin has longer legs. He catches up easily, stopping Bilbo before the corner. “Hey,” he says, “hey, wait. You didn’t make a fool of yourself.”

            “No?”

            “No. I mean, this weekend. Uh, Saturday. Have coffee with me.”

            “I thought I annoyed you?”     

            “You do.”

            Bilbo raises an eyebrow at him.

            “But I know plenty of people who are much more annoying than you.”

            “Is that so?”

            “That’s so,” Thorin says, and cringes, waiting for laughter that—surprisingly—doesn’t come.

            “What are you holding?” Bilbo asks instead, and Thorin glances down. He’d grabbed a bag of day-old sweet buns before he ran out of the store, half unconsciously. They’re still fresh enough, so he hands them to Bilbo.

            “To go with your yogurt,” he says.

            “What are you implying?” Bilbo asks, raising an eyebrow. Thorin stares at him, uncomprehendingly, and finally Bilbo shakes his head and just smiles. “Thank you, Thorin. You can let go of my arm now, too, and we’ll both go on our way. Can’t rush these things, you know.”

            Startled, Thorin drops Bilbo’s arm—why was he still holding it?—and steps back. He watches Bilbo walk away down the street, presumably headed home. “Will you come tomorrow?” he calls out.

            “I might,” Bilbo calls back. “If you make it worth my while.”

            “Come earlier,” Thorin tries, once more.

            “Stay open later,” Bilbo counters, sing-song, and waves before turning down a side street.

            Walking back to the store, Thorin knows that, objectively, he’s just lost that argument, and yet he’s not exactly unhappy about it. Not even all that annoyed, if he’s being honest. But he’s definitely not saying anything to anyone. They’d never let him live it down, not after all the times he’s complained.

            Why had he complained, anyway? Or, to ask the better question, how many days until Saturday?


End file.
